Honourable members of the committee, thank you for this invitation to be heard on the question of the future of commemoration in Canada.
I'd like to acknowledge my fellow veterans here.
I'm here before you today as a professor of Canadian military history, which means I don't have to wear a tie. I'm the external historian on the Veterans Affairs commemoration advisory group, CAG. I'm also here as a veteran myself.
From all of these three perspectives, I see that the time is now to recognize today's veterans. That is going to require substantial effort and a rethink, given how the vast part of our commemoration energy focuses on those who served in the First and Second World Wars, and, to a lesser extent, Korea.
You know it. All of you know it. The days when parades were full of First and Second World War veterans are long gone and our Korean veterans are aging. Thankfully, it seems that more and more younger veterans are showing up on November 11 to fill the ranks. Sometimes it's on parade, but often it's standing quietly in the crowd, maybe with their ribbons fixed on a civilian jacket, like Corporal Smith.
The problem we face is that the Remembrance Day and Veterans Week traditional program was conceived for and by those who collectively endured two world wars. They shaped the social and cultural practice that was meant to help them endure the traumatic loss of so many thousands of their friends and family members who lay in cemeteries that they could never visit. The people who remember that loss and who gather to remember on Remembrance Day are now the minority. The majority of Canadians who remain, including so many new Canadians who come from places that experienced the two world wars very differently than our country did, need new ways to understand Canada's past.
Most importantly, today's veterans need to see change. They need to see themselves in commemoration programming. I've had the good fortune, through service on the commemoration advisory group, to attend summits with representatives of dozens of modern veterans organizations who speak for tens of thousands of Canadian Armed Forces members who served after Korea. It is clear from those conversations that modern veterans are not asking anyone to forget about those defining world war experiences, or to stop acknowledging the accomplishment or the loss from those two conflicts. Most of the veterans I know, myself included, are proud to be associated with the achievements of our predecessors. The military culture on our bases, in our units and in our traditions constantly reminds serving and retired members of the Canadian Armed Forces that they carry on that legacy. You've heard that message already today.
However, members who served since then have also accomplished great things. Sometimes you might not be able to see the impact they made in Cyprus or Bosnia. They couldn't see it at the time because the result wasn't clear until years after they came home. It's high time we helped people understand what modern Canadian veterans have done for the country. Modern veterans need it for their good health. To endure extreme stress, armed conflict and danger, and to bear witness to the suffering of innocent people in dozens of war zones around the world without recognition or validation from one's fellow citizens or from one's prime minister creates a potential for an injury to the soul.
I know that Veterans Affairs staff have recognized internally the need for a new commemoration strategy. Our commemoration advisory group agreed and helped to shape and draft the strategy that I believe you have all been briefed on.
The problem to solve for the staff and for the CAG is how to bring these new stories into the equation and not abandon the old or forget Canada's wartime accomplishments and losses. The solution, I think, is simple. It is not to give up one for the other, but to fully integrate them and draw out the continuities and the issues of cause and consequence.
The concept we see is that, from 1914 to the present, there is a clear pattern of Canada playing a major role in international coalitions seeking to maintain peace, order and stability in the face of armed aggression, from rallying to the defence of Belgium from foreign invasion in 1914, to Poland in 1939, all the way through to Afghanistan and the current missions in Iraq and elsewhere. There is a clear link to post-1949 missions. They're designed to achieve the same goals, albeit in the face of different and varied challenges.
Members in more recent decades served the same ideals and the same goals, to protect Canadians at home and to build a better and more stable world, and to stand up to those who would use armed aggression as a political tool. The danger for them was ever present, even when bullets did not fly.
Sure, the nature of military service in the last 70 years got a heck of a lot more complicated. It is harder to demonstrate the impact of service. You cannot point to the hill capture or the city liberated from Nazi occupation. Success, on many of these missions, comes when things grow quiet, or stay quiet, however tense.
Our greatest challenge in getting this message across is a lack of awareness, because Canadians did not share in these modern conflicts with veterans the way that the whole nation went through the two world wars as one people—well, that's a debatable issue. It will take much work to help people today see all the ways that modern Canadian veterans have served, to build meaningful understanding of what Canada has asked its soldiers, sailors and aircrew to do on our behalf. They have always stood ready to do whatever was asked of them, from rescuing people in disaster zones through to going to war under the United Nations' authority.
Clearly, the consensus growing here is to target that programming on public education, because reaching the next generation in the classroom is the best way to ensure that the service of all veterans is understood first, then integrated and then maybe remembered. I see that this strategy can reach new Canadians who have moved here from every part of the globe, often fleeing from wars in the aftermath of war and destruction in their own countries. Many of those new Canadians might be able to relate to Canadian Forces' peace and stability missions or humanitarian aid missions in the past 70 years, and that might, in turn, generate their interest in the longer history of CAF service in the two world wars.
Last, I want to add that veterans do not want the story sugar-coated. They want their efforts recognized, in honest terms, so that Canadians might understand what they did and what they endured. This can go a long way towards their health and well-being.
Thank you for your time.